


3 Sentence AUs: Community Collection

by Ilthit



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: 3 Sentence Fiction, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Multi, POV Character of Color, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Community AU fic spawned by a meme on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 11+1 Trobed AUs

 

 

1\. Troy had been on his feet since 5 am and, the Greendale Community Hospital being chronically understaffed, wasn’t likely to get more than a quick cup of coffee at the nurses’ station before he finally clocked out. In the Borchert wing, that one skinny dude too old for his hoodie has been sitting by his mother’s bedside since they’d brought her in with a shattered clavicle and severe bruising on the face and upper torso, staring at her as if she was a puzzle he had to solve. 6 hours in, Troy had brought him coffee; 10 hours in he’d brought him a pillow, which he hadn’t touched; 16 hours in, at the end of his shift, Troy asked him out, half by accident, his speech blurred by exhaustion and already backpedaling into “sports bar” and “catch a sub maybe”, but the guy just nodded and took his hand, his beautiful eyes mysterious and, Troy now realized, terrified.

 

2.a. Brown-with-white-under-chin tenses as White-with-brown- on-chest sniffs him curiously, whiskers vibrating along with the twitches of his nose. They’re both young and new to the colony, but White-with-brown-on-chest is strong and battle- scarred, tail ready to twitch, even if he does show submission to Gold-with-black-ears. Brown-with-white-under-chin refuses to shiver, expecting at any moment rough claws and teeth on his face, shredding his already thin fur and marking him as inferior, but instead the paws are gentle, smoothing down the fur at the back of his neck, and relief floods through him, from the tip of the nose to the end of his tail - and then he does shiver, just once, excitement rocking his bony body, because for the first time in his life, he may have made a friend.

-

2.b. “I thought there were no cats in America,” said Abed, affecting an Irish accent and pretending to adjust an invisible peaked cap.

"Abed, I know you like to insert banter into action scenes, but that’s racist and we’re kinda busy running, so pick up your tail and move!”

The two mice scurried over the battlements in E9 North, leading the terrifying storm of claws and teeth right on to the path of the colony’s secret weapon.

-

3\. It turns out that living in a post-WWIII, post-oil future involves more hunting, gathering, planting and harvesting than it does cool Mad Max style road battles - which, when they do happen, are short and brutal and all too real, as they bury friend after friend just to keep Greendale’s one generator going.

Old goalposts and dreams are gone now, new rules are forming and solidifying, and under the constant threat of death they all seek out mates and groups and arrangements - Britta hunts for Annie and her baby while Jeff is on his quest; Garrett sews and cooks for Vicki, who runs the garden; and no-one is surprised when Troy and Abed curl up tight together and don’t invite anyone else in.

This future has no need for film majors, but when you’re tired and hungry every minute of every day, stories become all the more important, so Abed has value now, just for remembering the everything - all the stories of the old world, and the new ones they’re making now.

-

4\. ”I don’t like it,” said Abed as he looked out over the planet Earth turning on the space station’s horizon, shining with Sol’s reflected light like an enormous jewel suspended in midair. “You can’t just have everything be all right all of a sudden, not without creeping totalitarianism, or at least a major alien threat.”

"Okay, but while we wait for the invaders, come back to bed and check out this sweet 3D version of Plants vs. Zombies."

-

5\. “Did you know they write fanfic about us?” Troy asked, pointing at the screen of his MacBook Air as the make-up assistant tutted and told him to sit still while she applied some invisible substance that supposedly made his skin look more matte for the cameras.

"They write fanfic about everyone," said Abed, "and I think it’s interesting that people are forming completely fictionalized versions of our heavily scripted but partially improvised television representations of ourselves, though I am a little concerned that a wildly unrealistic 200,000 word college AU has more hits than we have viewers."

“‘Unrealistic’ is right,” Troy snorted, “that one’s five years into the plot and we still haven’t even made out.”

-

6\. “…Okay,” Abed says, and reaches for Troy’s hand, lets himself be pulled on to the rack and into his arms. He closes his eyes and clings to Troy’s jacket front until the rotten egg smell of sulfur and the crackle of fire fade and there’s just the smell of Troy and the hum of the air- conditioning, and the weight of his shame and weakness pressing into his chest as the new timeline clicks into place.

"I’m sorry," he says, and Troy’s face is moving and he can’t tell if it’s a smile or a grimace but then Troy is crushing his lips against his, so he hooks his hands behind Troy’s neck because sure, it’s a genre shift, but if Abed can’t let Troy go then the least he owes him is all of himself.

-

7\. “Why would you do that?” asked the prince who never laughed, cocking his head to the side and frowning at the string of townspeople variously arguing, shouting, and singing about how angry they were, every one of them attached by a glowing threat of magic to a beautiful but rather upset swan.

"I dunno, dude, I thought it was funny," Woodsman Troy said, shrugged and spread his arms while the swan took a peck at the nearest impudent human.

"You thought—" the prince started, and snorted a brief laugh, bringing the whole court into a shocked hush.

-

8\. Troy Barnes is the name on the door of the closet-sized office, where the sickly sweet smell of candy cigarettes and buttered noodles hangs low and heavy in LA’s midsummer heat.

Troy Barnes is the man they’ve all heard of, the man they come to hire - the cynical dilettantes with their shady revolutionary connections, the small town girls who got off the Greyhound and found an education in more than algebra, the rotten-to-the-core lawyers whose misdeeds have finally caught up with them, the disgraced psychiatrists mired in scandals of booze and sex - to them, he is the final glimmer of hope at the end of a long tunnel.

And if he comes with a sidekick, a strange gangly man who watches everyone and says very little, none of them mind, and barely even notice, so engaged are they by the cool good looks and confident manner of the best damn private eye in the business.

-

9\. “So did you have to give some part of you to a sea witch in exchange for legs?” asks Abed, and Troy shifts uncomfortably, hooking his ankles together under the table - a nervous twitch that really should have been a tell.

"Dude, no, that’s such a stereotype, and we are way more awesome than that - think, like, werefish who fight sharks and shoot pillars of water and shit. I just spend more time on land than most merpeople because of ocean pollution and…" he rubbed a hand on the back of his head and shot a shy glance at Abed "…well, I guess some of the stereotype fits.”

-

10\. “I know Pierce’s will said you have to bring a companion,” Jeff said, cutting into the excited chatter around the study room table, “but don’t you think it’s counterproductive to bring your boyfriend on what’s supposed to be a solo round-the-world trip to teach you how to be a man?”

"Why, would I become more of a man if I went with, I dunno, LeVar Burton or something?”

Jeff had no answer to that.

-

11\. Troy’s head still felt mushy from whatever the hell had gone down at the Halloween party, the bruises and scratches on his neck itched despite the bandaids and disinfectant, and Toy Story 2 wasn’t really helping - funny how many cartoons happened to have amnesia plots.

The part where Jessie was left behind always made him cry, and when the first chords of When She Loved Me played he found himself reaching across the empty stretch of sofa and touching the back of his hand against Abed’s, who unexpectedly hooked their fingers together.

"I love you," Troy said, hanging on tight and terrified of what he’d just said, but from the corner of his eye he could see Abed break into a small smile and nod.

 


	2. More Trobed AUs

_hedwwig asks: Trobed merpeople AU?_

"C’mon, Abed, you can trust me!" Troy says and holds out a hand with one of his face-splitting grins, and Abed’s not sure because that’s something people say a hell of a lot when they know it’s a bald-faced lie.

His heart is beating fast with panic but he reaches out and takes Troy’s hand anyway. They wade into the ocean and the waves lap at Abed’s jeans, trying to push him over and pull him in, into a roaring deep black mystery, but Troy is holding his hand and he is not going to let him drown.

-

_hedwwig asks: TROBED HONEYMOON AU :D_

Troy did figure himself out: The first thing he did when he got back was kiss Abed and declare he wanted to watch TV for twenty years and never leave Colorado again. In a month, though, he’d changed his mind, and a road trip to Las Vegas to get married turned into a tour of the Western states, visiting every theme park, reenacting every trope, and staying at a different motel every night, with cable and cold chocolate milk and a lot of making up for lost time. The money had come through, after all, and they were in no hurry anymore.

-

_hedwwig asks: Trobed never reunited AU. :(_

Abed had thought he’d given Troy up for lost the moment he’d let him go, so it came as a surprise when a few weeks after the anniversary of Troy’s departure the last bit of hope winked out, choking the breath out of him in the middle of an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Troy’s Facebook was all photos of the open vistas of New South Wales, the girl he was dating, the cricket team he’d joined, and the family he was staying with; he looked happy. Abed would tell him he was happy for him, and maybe in time that would be true.


	3. 1 Chuncan AU

_robotlesbianjavert asks: OBVS CHUNCAN PAL with a space setting tho go_

"Listen, Earth Control, this has all been very amusing, but you can’t seriously mean to leave me alone with _him_ for _three months_.”

Ben sneered as Duncan rattled the comm link like a bad landline, and threw himself bonelessly on one of the 60s space nostalgia couches in the Mars base’s comm room. This was just space twist on the Canadian shack trope and he for one wasn’t going to prolong the inevitable.


	4. Trobed, Abedcan and Trobednie

_hedwwig asks: trobed superhero au!_

"I know why Superman cared," Troy told Abed over breakfast, wiping pancake batter off the side of his mouth. "All Clark Kent had to worry about was missing deadlines on a story he could speed-write in two minutes. I love being super but sometimes you just wanna have a pancake fight, you know?"

-

_hedwwig asks: abedcan stranded in a jungle???_

"You said you’d studied jungle survival. You said you’d be ready for any emergency should we get lost!"

"Somebody had to, or we would’ve missed out on ironically predicting the second act crisis."

-

_hedwwig asks: trobednie reality cooking show au?_

Troy and Abed circled Annie’s work station, but the youngest-ever finalist of the Great Greendale Bake-Off was quick to swat their fingers away from her dough with a spatula.

"Patience, you guys!" she said, unable to stop grinning at the hosts, and wondering whether it would be obvious to everyone watching at home that she was flirting her little heart out.


	5. Not Actually AUs But Still 3 Sentences

_\- hedwwig: jeff is the lone Hetero left at greendale -_

 

Britta refuses to celebrate her and Frankie’s first anniversary because (she says) it’s institutionalizing their relationship, so Jeff takes Frankie aside and explains about Troy.

“I thought he and Abed were together?”

“It’s difficult to explain in terms that aren’t strictly heterosexual.”

-

“Come on, four out of four of my friends is gay, it’s  _like_  I’m gay myself!”

One of the wads of paper almost got Jeff in the eye before he could put his hands up. It was safe to say he wouldn’t be put in charge of the newly formed Greendale LGBTQIA Club.


	6. I Don't Know How to Title This Chapter

_robotlesbianjavert: chuncan penpal au, jeff/chang superhero au, jeff/shirley flowershop au??_

 

 

\- chuncan penpal au - 

Ian leafed through the dozen or so prison letters he’d printed out so far. The man talked about chess tournaments and toadying to someone called Big Carl and always came back the subject of a keytar musical in Spanish featuring an all-inmate cast, like some horrid 21st century Jailhouse Rock - not a single story about brutality or violence, unless you counted the one in the musical where the main character briefly becomes Napoleon and rules with blood and fire. How was he supposed to get a  ~~boner~~  book out of that? 

 

\- jeff/chang superhero au - 

“Another victory for Wingman and his little pal, right, El Tigre?” said Jeff, holding his left hand up for a high-five while his right steered the Wingplane up towards Hawthorne Manor.

Chang sat on his hands and glared at Jeff through his tiger mask. “Ever feel like our set-up is pretty racist?”

 

\- jeff/shirley flowershop au -

Shirley should’ve guessed from the way Jeff’s job application had described his strengths as abs, security in his masculinity, and being “just a guy who believes in America”, but somehow she was still surprised to find he’d filled the entire storefront with nothing but red roses. 

“All right, Jeffrey, you may try to explain before I fire your ass,” she said in her no-nonsense, get-in-bed-right-now-or-I’ll-put-you-to-sleep-right-here voice.

“Happy Valentine’s Day?”


	7. Another Chapter of Unconnected Mini-Fics

**Post-series Trobed + Somewhere Out There**

Abed imagines there are universes out there where he can still watch An American Tail. He’s mildly resentful of those other Abeds, whether it’s because they didn’t care as much or because they’re stronger, healthier people. He’s not sure which kind of Abed he envies more.

-

**Chuncan + drunk dialling**

“Hey guess what Señor Inferiority Complex, you have a borderline personality disorder, you are not Mexican, you are not Korean, you are a lousy actor and you are not gay.”

“Say that to my face, pickle-breath, and I’ll go down on you like the fucking Titanic.” 

“Buzz me in.”

-

**Trobed + textures**

“You could’ve just said it’s a no-touching day,” said Troy when he found Abed in front of the TV, wrapped in a fleece blanket. His skin crawled at the mere sight of the texture. But Abed glanced at him and he got it: no touching, but also no talking.


End file.
